Fresh 70, gear review

So, as I mentioned in my prior post, I’ve made a brand new account on the PS4 in order to have a fresh start in Diablo. I’ve got my first character to 70 (with a little power leveling help from my main account). After a single run through of Act 1 Bounties on Normal, I’ve captured the gear I have so that we can go over whats good, whats bad, and what we should be looking for. It’s worth noting I don’t have any legendaries here, as I power leveled. Odds are, if you hit 70 by playing normally, you’ll have a legendary or two, which is fine.

This is a pretty mediocre helm. It would be an awful helm if it didn’t have perfect crit on it, with crit being a big contributor to damage.
The first issue is that it only rolled 3 out of 4 possible primary affixes (an item can roll up to 4 primary affixes, and 2 secondary). That in and of itself is an issue as it means its inherently less powerful than it could be, and limits our enchanting potential. Following that, the helm is missing core stat (for our Barb, Strength) and a socket. If we wanted to salvage this helmet, we’d reroll the Whirlwind damage into Core Stat, as we don’t use Whirlwind, and a socket would give us less overall than raw core stat. The secondary affixes (Lightning Resist and Thorns here) don’t matter.

These shoulders are better than our helm in terms of what we want. It has both Core Stat and Vitality on it, and both rolled near perfect too. The Area Damage and Overpower damage aren’t really that helpful, but at least we got 4 primary affixes. Unfortunately, it did roll a secondary resist, which means we can’t re-roll to All Resist as a primary. Since that is the case, we’d re-roll Overpower damage to % Life on these shoulders. Area damage, while not necessarily something you want to hunt for on gear, can be useful on Barbarians.

This chest armor is actually pretty solid. It rolled 4 primary affixes, 3 of which are stats we’d keep. The core stat roll is super good. Generally, I like to at least be within 10-20 of the max stat when it comes to core stat/vitality. Given that, the Vitality roll is a pinch too low for me, although it’ll work, as we’re going to be enchanting something else on this chest armor. The +Life % helps with the Vitality roll being lower than I’d like (perfect %life roll no less). The Falling Sword damage is what we’d enchant here, given that its not even a skill our class has. Re-rolling Falling Sword into 3 Sockets is the ideal course here, with those sockets being filled with core stat gems.

These are some awful gloves. First and foremost, only 3 primary affixes (and 1 secondary, but secondary affixes are basically Meg affixes as far as we’re concerned at the moment). Of the three affixes we rolled, we didn’t get core stat or crit chance. Gloves are one of those slots that are ideal for a more offensive focus (alongside amulets, rings, and to some degree bracers), and these particular gloves just don’t cut it. I personally wouldn’t even re-roll these, as you’re likely to find more workable gloves just by playing. Look for high core stat on your replacements, then re-roll them to at least 8% crit chance, they’ll be better than these gloves.

These bracers are pretty bad. While they did roll core stat, they only rolled 3 primary affixes, and each one of them is under the threshold I’d consider good. Strength should be at least 400, and Life Per Second should be at least 6000. Life Per Hit is strictly worse than Life Per Second for melee classes, so if you wanted to try and fix these, you’d roll it into 6% crit chance.

Pretty mediocre pants. While they rolled pretty nice stats, they only rolled 3 primary affixes, and only the Life Per Second is in an acceptable range. The Strength and Vitality is under our desired 400 roll (with Vitality rolling near minimum). I wouldn’t try enchanting these at all, as Pants are one of those pieces where 4 affixes are super useful. If we had 4 affixes, my ideal final affix would be 2 sockets, filled with core stat gems (rubies for Barbarians).

Well, we got 4 primary affixes at least. The Strength and Vitality rolled lower than I’d like, and the Armor/Whirlwind rolls are useless to me. Armor is a weird stat, as I usually find that you get enough from gear alone. Barbarians, Crusaders, Monks and Demon Hunters also gain armor from their core stat, so it should never be something you’re too short on. I’d personally re-roll the Whirlwind damage into +12% Movespeed.

A mediocre amulet at best. While it did get core stat and Vitality, it rolled them low, ignoring the fact we don’t want vitality on our amulet. I’d personally look for a new amulet, one with Strength (at least 600, although high 500s will do if you get the following), Crit Chance (at least 8%) and Crit Damage (at least 80%). The fourth affix should be a socket or attack speed, with a socket being preferred for preparation for legendary gems.

Both of these rings are pretty mediocre. One of them didn’t even roll the correct core stat for our class (gg smart loot?). While the crit chance on both of them is nice, its not quite enough to make them worth using in the long run. Ideal replacements are much like the amulet – Strength, Crit Chance (at least 5.5%), Crit Damage (at least 45%), and a socket.

Okay, this is a super good weapon, easily the best piece of gear we have, currently. The damage roll is pretty respectable (even if it is just shy of 300 below the cap), we scored % damage on it (which is a huge contributor to raw weapon dps), AND core stat close to our acceptable range. I plan on re-rolling the area damage into a socket when I have the resources to do so, and placing an Emerald into that socket for more crit damage. A weapon upgrade would have higher damage rolls, 10% weapon damage, 930+ strength and a socket.

That about covers the gear review. My max damage lists on the ring and the weapon are a bit off (seeing as the tooltip for damage range is broken), I’ll have more details on those later, probably in their own post, or failing that, a post listing the maximum ranges for every stat in the game on both rares and legendaries for every single item.

The skills I’m using on my Barbarian will get their own post, when I’ve got my skills figured out, as I’m still ironing out the build.